40+ Ideas to Inspire Your Project of Earth

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How would you explain the diversity of life and culture on Earth to someone — or something — from a far-away planet?

In 1977 Carl Sagan and his team created the Golden Record — a collection of scenes, sounds, music, and greetings representing life on Earth — and launched it into space on NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 probes. Intended as a message for other intelligent life forms who might encounter these spacecraft and wonder about their origins, the record was also an exercise in self-discovery and reflection.

Four decades later, we’re still inspired by the imagination, optimism, and curiosity that went into creating this terrestrial time capsule. So we’re asking you to contribute to making something that represents life on Earth in 2017 by putting your own imaginative idea out there for others to discover. We know, we know — representing a whole planet is a huge undertaking. That’s why we’re inviting our entire community to take part. Combined, these projects will form a portrait of the Earth today: our accomplishments, challenges, hopes, and dreams, conveyed through a diverse collection of creative projects.

OpenROV TridentYou don’t have to travel to space to discover a vast realm full of strange lifeforms. This swimming robot opens up underwater exploration to everyone.

Pictures of Earth

“I found myself increasingly playing the role of extraterrestrial… I would look at pictures and imagine I’d never seen the subject before.” —Jon Lomberg on selecting images for the Golden Record, Murmurs of Earth

Eyes as Big as PlatesPhotographers Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen collaborated with over fifty seniors from ten countries on this photo series exploring modern humans’ relationship with nature.

The Priests and Pilgrims of Ethiopia
Photographer Chris Roche documented ceremonies at the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia — part of an ongoing series exploring commonalities across different religions.

Racing AgePortraits of master track and field athletes who are redefining the stereotypes and limitations of age.

Music of Earth

“Our previous messages [sent into space] had contained information about what we perceive and how we think. But there is much more to human beings than perceiving and thinking. We are feeling creatures. However, our emotional life is more difficult to communicate, particularly to beings of very different biological make-up. Music, it seemed to me, was at least a creditable attempt to convey human emotions.” —Carl Sagan, Murmurs of Earth

Sounds of Earth

“The process of selecting the sounds began outside of Ithaca, New York, on a bright spring day that was auspiciously abuzz with wild May country noises… We tried to think of every sound we’d ever heard, and I wrote most of them down. On the following day I returned to New York City and set about trying to locate the best examples of each.” —Ann Druyan, Murmurs of Earth

Greetings from Earth

“The greetings part of the record is a celebration of the human spirit, emphasizing our gregariousness, our joy in being the social creatures we are.” —Linda Salzman Sagan, Murmurs of Earth

Mysterious Letters
Michael Crowe and Lenka Clayton are writing a unique letter to every household in the world, one town at a time.

The Truth BoothArtist Hank Willis Thomas has taken his 14-foot, speech-bubble-shaped video booth around the world, inviting members of the public to record messages completing the statement, "The truth is...."

Welcome to Our CityThese screen-printed maps offer a simple but powerful message: all are welcome here.

Pen PalsTypographer Harald Geisler is recreating letters exchanged between Freud and Einstein in 1932, discussing if and how it would be possible to save humanity from war forever.

Food

“Although the picture is somewhat comic to us, it presents a great deal of information about how our mouths work. It also tells the galaxy that we live by bread, water, and ice cream.” —Jon Lomberg on representing eating on the Golden Record, Murmurs of Earth

PlantSnapAn app that lets you identify plants in the wild by snapping a picture with your phone.

The ArkWhen work started on this VR documentary, there were seven northern white rhinos left on Earth. Now there are just three.

Space

“We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
—President Jimmy Carter, Voyager Spacecraft Statement

SpaceTime CoordinatesArtistic prints depicting the alignment of the planets in our solar system on the day you were born — or any other day you’d like.

The Future

“No one sends such a message on such a journey, to other worlds and beings, without a positive passion for the future. For all the possible vagaries of the message, they could be sure that we were a species endowed with hope and perseverance, at least a little intelligence, substantial generosity, and a palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos.” —Carl Sagan, Murmurs of Earth

The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph ProjectLauren Halsey’s installation, constructed with the community in South Central Los Angeles, adopts the future-facing permanence of ancient hieroglyphs to create a visual archive of the neighborhood.

The Work and Ideas of Carl Sagan

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” —Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot